Some Lingering Questions About Snow White’s Bizarre New Lore

If there’s one truth about our world it’s that when a beloved Disney cartoon becomes a maligned Disney live-action remake, there’s always a lore drop. Sometimes this takes the form of a villain backstory — consider the spinoff films Maleficent or Cruella, or the detail that Gaston is a “war veteran” (which war?) in Beauty and the Beast. Other times this means there’s an unnatural interest in STEM fields, like the kids in both Dumbo and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Never has the encroaching specter of lore been more apparent than this weekend’s Snow White. Already maligned with controversy surrounding both stars Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler, the studio’s latest introduces a number of aggressively irrelevant details to further complicate its new take on an unimpeachable classic. In an attempt to better understand Snow White — who’d have thought we needed that? — some lingering questions about the film’s convoluted backstory.

Where is this supposed to be set?

Obviously, this isn’t really clear — we have no country name nor made-up map to look at — but Snow White makes reference to the wars “in the south.” Oh, Mary voice: “The south of what?” There’s also an area called the “Western Vale” (which is a region in Guild Wars 2, though that’s surely a coincidence).

Wait, what are they at war over?

No clue. It’s about an evil queen and dwarves, not military strategy.

How does the government in Snow White function?

We’re dealing with a mostly straightforward monarchy, with Snow White’s (Rachel Zegler) birth parents ruling until their untimely deaths and her stepmother (Gal Gadot) taking her throne in their absence.

What is the economy based on?

Under Snow White’s parents’ rule, everything seemed like an agrarian paradise, a loosely medieval kingdom where everyone is always eating fruit and/or pies and/or fruit pies. Whether or not they have a functioning trade system remains to be seen.

What happened when the Evil Queen took over?

The Evil Queen doesn’t care about pie; she cares about being the fairest of them all and jewels. She forced a number of the farmers to become guards or soldiers in her army — again, to fight what war? — at the risk of farmlands. Why she would neglect agriculture makes little sense, but upon the film’s start, the people in the kingdom are starving.

So the prince comes from another kingdom to rescue Snow White?

No, this time the prince is just a guy named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) who is basically like the DSA chapter president of people who live in the woods who are loyal to the true king of wherever the hell this is set.

Wait, so the prince is a pro-monarchist bandit?

Yeah, there seems to be affection for the original line of royalty who were all about sharing resources, even though communism, or even socialism, is at odds with monarchy. The Evil Queen is bad, however, because she hoards resources. That much is clear.

The dwarves.

What about them?

Are they still mining jewels?

Yup, that’s the same.

So the Evil Queen who is obsessed with jewels is trading with the dwarves?

No. It’s not clear where the Evil Queen’s jewels and gems come from, nor do we know where the dwarves’ mining lodes are going. The dwarves tell Snow White they haven’t encountered a human in hundreds of years.

Don’t the bandits live in the woods?

Yeah.

So the bandits and dwarves, who all live in the woods, never interacted before now?

Maybe the woods are really big.

And the dwarves … they’re brothers?

They seem to be really old not-friends who all live in the same house. When you’re making a cartoon 87 years ago, you don’t have to explain how and why seven guys all live in the same house. In 2025, for whatever reason, that otherwise simple setup starts to feel a bit strange, like, are they friends or cousins or what?

They have magic powers too, right?

When the dwarves go into the mine to sing “Heigh-Ho,” their hands glow red and when they touch rocks, all the minerals and gems light up.

What does that do?

No idea.

Does that power come into play during a climactic scene?

No, we never see the dwarves use this power again for the rest of the film.

Sorry — their hands glow?

For some reason!

Just to double back for a second, why does the Evil Queen’s policy shift from a pie-based economy to a gem-based send Snow White’s kingdom into economic depression? Did she make all the farmers and bakers become miners?

No, it’s not really clear where her gems are coming from, just that she’s got a lot of them and doesn’t care about anything else. Mostly it seems like the people in the kingdom have just been starving and not farming during her reign of terror, though if she’s so focused on jewels, why does she care if anyone is farming?

What happens at the end?

Snow White rightfully takes the throne, and the economy goes back to being pie-based.

Do the pies look good at least?

Weirdly, no … they’re way too big and way too crusty. How do you mess up pie?